by Scott Lamb
Many actions of a governor are entirely ceremonial in nature. But sometimes the ceremonial acts have such an energy to them that they affect the real-world conversation and actions of others. In his 1997 State of the State address, Huckabee proclaimed a year of racial reconciliation for Arkansas. He said, “Let every one of us make it our priority to bring reconciliation, not so much that we can force it or legislate it, because we cannot, but that we begin in each of our own lives to purpose in our hearts that we will not harbor anger, hostility, prejudice, bigotry, and racism toward any person.”36
Two years earlier, the Southern Baptist convention had offered up a resolution of reconciliation—contrition and apology—for the denomination’s acceptance and promotion of slavery during its founding in the 1840s. Also included in the contrition was an admission that Southern Baptists had been slow to support the civil rights movement of the 1960s. At the time of this resolution, both Clinton and Huckabee were members of Southern Baptist churches.
Dwight McKissic remembers how, during Huckabee’s early years as governor, his old friend and pastoral colleague “awarded the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (HBCU) two million dollars from his discretionary fund to assist in building them a new football stadium.”37 This school, a historically black university, had used facilities of much poorer quality than some of the other state universities. “UAPB had always been a stepchild in the University of Arkansas system,” Huckabee said. “It had always gotten shortchanged, but we remedied that. Now they have ten to fifteen thousand people come to these facilities for their annual homecoming, and the event is a great source of pride for the school.”38 McKissic wrote, “The overall funding that UAPB received from the Arkansas State government during Gov. Huckabee’s term in office far exceeded the funding received during Bill Clinton’s governorship in Arkansas. Gov. Huckabee appointed over 300 African Americans to boards, commissions and state employment positions during his tenure as Arkansas governor.”39
Huckabee also steered money, a “disproportionate amount of health care dollars,” to the Delta regions of Arkansas, where a higher number of minorities live and where low wages keep the area poor and less developed in terms of infrastructure and health care. The annual budget became one way in which Huckabee showed he meant what he said when he talked about racial reconciliation.40
Huckabee recalled an encounter he had several years after leaving office, while passing through Arkansas and eating dinner with some friends. He looked up from his table and saw Hank Wilkins Jr., an African-American member of the Arkansas legislature during Huckabee’s administration. “He came over, gave me a big hug; we talked awhile. He said, ‘I was talking with some guys just a few weeks ago, and we got to talking about all the governors we had worked with over the years. We all agreed that you were the best one we ever worked with. It’s true; you always kept your word. When you told us you were going to do something, we never had to worry. You’d actually do it. Every time. Every word. And you listened to us—you cared and you made things happen.’ ”41
On September 26, 1997, Huckabee shared an outdoor stage in downtown Little Rock with a number of distinguished guests to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the “Little Rock nine” event. In the battle for the integration of the Little Rock schools, Central High in Little Rock was the epicenter of segregationist hostility. Nine African-American students attempted to attend but were turned away at the door by the Arkansas National Guard. Now, forty years later, the same nine people, now middle-aged, came together with the citizens of Arkansas to commemorate the pain of the past and to call for an ever-increasing reconciliation of the races. The son of Thurgood Marshall was in the audience. On the platform sat President Bill Clinton, First Lady Hillary Clinton, and Governor Mike Huckabee and the First Lady of Arkansas, Janet Huckabee.
“At this schoolhouse door today, let us rejoice in the long way we have come these 40 years,” President Clinton said. “Like so many Americans, I can never fully repay my debt to these nine people. For with their innocence, they purchased more freedom for me, too, and for all white people.”42
Hillary Clinton rose to speak. “Unlike the other speakers that you will hear from, and unlike the Little Rock nine, I did not grow up in Arkansas. I saw what happened in Little Rock in 1957 from my suburb outside of Chicago where I went to a school that was all white. Where I lived only with white people. And as I sat in my living room and looked at the television set, I didn’t know what to think. It not only was an issue for those who lived in Little Rock and in Arkansas; it was an issue for the United States. And it took me some years to realize that what happened here, and the courage and perseverance of the Little Rock nine was directly related to my own life.”43
In contrast to the Clintons, Governor Huckabee was relatively unknown outside of Arkansas at the time of the 1997 commemoration. The Clintons had first entered the governor’s mansion eighteen years earlier, but Huckabee had arrived only fourteen months prior. But with national and international media covering the event, Huckabee walked to the podium and delivered a powerful address.
Essentially, it’s not just a skin problem, it’s a sin problem. Because we in Arkansas have wandered around in ambiguity, all kinds of explanations and justifications. And I think today we come to say once and for all that what happened here 40 years ago was simply wrong. It was evil, and we renounce it. . . .
What is really tragic that we today come to renounce is the fact that in many parts of the South it was the white churches that helped not only ignore the problems of racism, but in many cases actually fostered those feelings and sentiments. And today, we call upon every church, every pulpit, every synagogue, every mosque in every part of Arkansas and the rest of the world to say never, never, never, never again will we be silent when people’s rights are at stake. . . .
Let me remind us: Government can do some things, but only God can change people’s hearts. Government can put us in the same classrooms, but government can’t make classmates go home and be friends when school is out. Government can make sure that the doors of every public building are open to everyone. Government can ensure that we share schools and streets and lunch counters and buses and elevators and theaters. But let us never forget that only God can give us the power to love each other and respect each other and share life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness with every American, regardless of who he or she is.44
Ebony magazine called Huckabee’s speech “perhaps the strongest statement of the day.”45 And the New York Times said, “Of Thursday’s speakers, it fell to Huckabee, Arkansas’ Republican governor, to issue the strongest denunciation of his state’s past sins.”46
On that day back in July 1995 when Jim Tucker had reneged on the promised resignation, he told Huckabee, “The people of Arkansas voted for me. Over four hundred thousand of them elected me governor. They didn’t elect you.”47
So in 1998, when it was time for Huckabee to face reelection, it would actually be his first campaign for governor. Since his losing Senate campaign in 1992 (60 percent to 40 percent), he had won the statewide lieutenant governor’s race twice, in 1993 (51 percent to 49 percent) and 1994 (58 percent to 41 percent). But would Arkansas now elect him outright as governor? Dick Morris, again Huckabee’s counsel, said the polls looked good for Huckabee.
When the votes were all counted, Huckabee had won by a margin of 60 percent to 39 percent (the exact opposite of his 1992 loss). He had earned 421,989 votes from his fellow Arkansas citizens. Over four hundred thousand of them had elected Huckabee as governor.
CHAPTER 25
LIFE IS A HIGHWAY
1998–2002
Our people deserve good roads.
—MIKE HUCKABEE
FRESH FROM HIS VICTORIOUS 1998 REELECTION, MIKE HUCKABEE gathered with his advisors and took stock of his first partial term of office. They
agreed his poll numbers were strong, indicating that the citizens of Arkansas generally liked the way the administration conducted itself in those trying first few years. They discussed what political roads needed to be traveled during the second term of office.
The issue of “legacy” came up—what did Huckabee want his legacy as governor to be? What did he want the people of Arkansas to remember him for?
In governing, a leader can choose to be passive, acting mostly in reaction to current events, natural disasters, and problems presented by constituents with the loudest voices. Or a governor can be proactive in leadership, putting forth a positive vision of where he or she intends to take the state. Huckabee determined to lead proactively.
Recent statistical information from the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department led Huckabee to ask tough questions about the conditions of Arkansas’s infrastructure. He heard reports of roads and bridges crumbling. New roads needed to be built and old roads needed expanding and repaving. Everywhere one looked, the transportation infrastructure of Arkansas was keeping people from getting safely where they needed to go. This cost citizens extra dollars out of their pockets for car maintenance and fuel, in addition to the safety issues involved with poor roads.
So Huckabee began to envision at least one priority he would make in this first full term of office. He would fix the roads. Doing something practical like this wouldn’t be the path to international fame, but it would be just the thing needed in order to get Arkansans safely where they needed to go. And that was reason enough for Huckabee to tackle this challenge.
The best calculations estimated it would take five years and $950 million dollars to fix the worst 60 percent of Arkansas roads, roughly 400 miles.1 Together with the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation System, Huckabee rolled out the “Pave the Way” campaign for creating public support for a ballot initiative to fund the work. If Arkansas voters wanted a safer road system, then they would vote for its funding.
As in most states, Arkansas had used the pay-as-you-go method for regular road maintenance and rehabilitation, and the state repaired only what they could afford in each annual budget. But with the magnitude of the improvements now needed, a new method was necessary. Huckabee and the highway department reasoned that borrowing some money to fix more roads sooner would be cheaper than fixing them through the pay-as-you-go system. It made logical sense.
Throughout the spring of 1999, Huckabee worked hard in urging the Arkansas legislature to support the funding of the roadwork. The legislature voted by an overwhelming margin of 85 to 14 to increase the state gas and diesel taxes by three cents per gallon, with the tax money going straight into roadwork. Analysts calculated this would raise $44 million per year.2 Legislators also gave authorization, by means of a 95 to 1 vote, for the highway commission to sell bonds, but only if the public first approved of them through a ballot initiative. In both of these votes, Huckabee earned overwhelming bipartisan support from the duly elected representatives of the citizens.
Next, Huckabee took to campaigning for the initiative, hitting the road and going out to the people to make his pitch. He treated the task as the political campaign that it was and raised money for public relations to get the word out about the need for supporting the initiative. “I do not wish to leave Arkansans bouncing along on poorly maintained highways,” Huckabee wrote. “Our people deserve good roads and so do those who are visiting our beautiful state.” He also explained to the voters how the ballot initiative did not raise the taxes of a single Arkansas citizen: “Voting yes will not increase taxes. Voting no will not decrease taxes.”3
When the measure was put to a vote in June 1999, Arkansas citizens approved the plan by a vote of 80 to 20 percent, marking the first time in fifty years they had authorized taking on debt for highways. Roadwork began by the end of 2000, and the bonds were paid off within a decade. By the time of its completion, this would become the largest highway project in the history of the state. As a result, by the end of the term, the citizens of Arkansas nicknamed Huckabee “the highway governor.”
Huckabee’s relationship with the media improved remarkably since his first days in office, as journalists realized just how knowledgeable the governor was about how they did their work. He understood broadcasting, journalism, tight deadlines, and the need for timely quotes. What’s more, he surrounded himself with staff who had extensive backgrounds in journalism and used them to reach out to the media. “Help the media do their jobs,” was the idea.
Alice Stewart, the director of media and communications for Huckabee’s 2008 and 2016 campaigns, came to Little Rock in 2000 to work as the weekend anchor and news reporter for KARK (NBC). “[Governor Huckabee] was really good to all of us who were tasked with covering politics and Arkansas government,” Stewart recalls. “If I had a question, he was usually available for an on-camera interview. There were times I remember where he would call me back personally, or have his staff connect with me—getting me the information I needed. He always took the time to answer my questions and was very open and transparent.”4
That’s not to say that everyone in media wanted to play nice with the Republican governor. Huckabee recalls how during the 1998 campaign, it seemed that he was getting an immense amount of front-page coverage, but all of it was negative. Was that simply his perception? Curious, he tasked Rex Nelson, his chief of staff and the former editor of the statewide newspaper Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with analyzing the coverage. Nelson began keeping detailed records. “Rex found that in the seventeen days leading up to the election, there were eighteen front-page news stories about me,” Huckabee recalled. “And every single one of them was a negative story. It was unbelievable. Worse, some of them were just conjecture.”5
For example, the Huckabees finally decided to sell their home in Texarkana. They still wanted a place for their family to go outside the governor’s mansion, and so they found a little cabin up on Lake Greeson that was owned by an elderly couple. The husband was showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease, and the wife had been diagnosed with cancer. They hated to sell the cabin, having saved up over the years for the land and then having built the cabin with their own hands. But their children helped them relocate closer to family in order to take care of them in their declining health. The Huckabees closed on the sale of their Texarkana home, realizing a profit, and immediately reinvested the money into the cabin to avoid paying capital gains taxes. One of the newspapers got wind of these real estate transactions and published a speculation story, just ahead of the election, asking how it was that the governor could have purchased the cabin. Did a wealthy donor secretly put some money in the Huckabees’ pockets for the purchase? When the newspaper contacted the elderly couple and questioned them about their activities, Huckabee was appalled. Such an intrusion was unthinkable.6
In Arkansas there exists a mechanism for citizens to file an ethics complaint against an elected official. The filing of a complaint doesn’t necessarily mean the official is guilty of the charge, but it does provide an opportunity to move potential corruption out of the shadows and into the light. The Ethics Commission would pursue the lead and investigate, or the complaint might even merit the attention of journalists, who would report on the story of potential violations.
Throughout his ten years in office, fourteen ethics complaints were filed against Huckabee. In response, Huckabee twice sued the commission itself, claiming that it “has been misused as a weapon against Republicans” and that he had been “unfairly attacked regarding his ethics history while governor of Arkansas.”7 Most of the complaints were dismissed, although five of them came with admonitions from the commission. He was charged a thousand dollars’ fine in one of the cases.
Without either getting into the details of each ethics complaint or brushing them all under the rug, what do these allegations tell us about Huckabee?
&
nbsp; First, in what seems to be the most significant infraction, in which the Huckabees had to pay the fine, the commission charged Huckabee with failing to declare a payment he made to himself from his campaign. The payment itself was not in question at all, just the record keeping of the payment.8 The Huckabees paid the thousand-dollar fine and learned the lesson: stay on top of your records.
In another example, the commission found Huckabee did not disclose $23,500 worth of royalties from speaking engagements undertaken before he became governor. But the commission ruled this an “unintentional failure to disclose.”9 Again, it was deemed sloppy record keeping.
Then there is the issue of gifts. People claim the Huckabees enjoyed too much the getting of gifts, however legal they may have been. Max Brantley said the Huckabees seemed to expect that copious amounts of gifts would be coming their way, and Brantley thought this was problematic, or at least unprofessional. Now, Huckabee’s political enemies readily admit that he simply cannot be bought, that if the gift-givers had a quid pro quo expectation, they were going to be disappointed. Nevertheless, when the Huckabees filed their gift disclosure reports, the list of gifts and givers ran too long, according to the critics. Cowboy boots, a chainsaw, dental care (a Lester Sitzes donation), suits, dress shoes for the kids, flowers for the governor’s mansion, free rental of bass boat—Huckabee had many friends who gave him many things.10